I always love hosting debut novelists here, and ones who are lawyers from Ann Arbor–does it get better than that? Jodi Picoult calls Julie Lawson Timmer’s Five Days Left, released yesterday, “a beautifully drawn study of what is at risk when you lose control of your own life. Unique, gripping, and viscerally moving.” So yes, it does get better! And Julie’s story of how she got started is very moving, too. – Meg
My husband is in automotive marketing, and he’s forever coming up with phrases I’ve never heard of. For example, you know that little plastic clip some cars have on the inside of the windshield on the driver’s side, that holds parking card passes? That kind of thing is called “a surprise and delight.” Who knew?
The concept of “push/pull” in marketing speaks to whether a company is pushing a product on you or whether you are pulled toward that product. Pushing a product–say, a car–would involve offering incentives like rebates and zero percent financing. When consumers are pulled toward a car, though, it sells at sticker price, or even above. (Ford Thunderbirds sold above sticker).
How does this relate to writing your first novel, or to how I wrote mine? Well, list with me all the methods you’ve heard about how to push yourself to write an entire novel: set daily word count (or page count) goals; get up two hours early; write for a certain period of time each day; do the 1k/1hr challenges on Twitter; sign up for NaNoWriMo; BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard); swap a chapter/week with a critique partner to keep yourself accountable.
I have tried every one of these push methods and for me, they all work because I am Type AAA–I would rather cut off a limb than miss a deadline or a word count target. But pushing yourself can feel like drudgery, and even the most disciplined of us can only deal with “Ugh, I have to write 498 more words before I’m allowed to quit for the day,” for so long. In Michigan, in winter, at 4am, “I have to meet my word count” is not as enticing as the warm bed you’re trying to drag yourself out of. If I had only push techniques to sustain me for the two years it took me to draft, revise, query, restructure/rewrite and revise again before I got an agent and a book deal, I’m not sure Five Days Left would exist.
What kept me going was identifying a pull. I’m sure you could list some of these with me, too: imagine yourself winning the Pulitzer/Nobel/ Man/Booker. Picture yourself at the premier of the movie you’ve sold the rights to–walking the red carpet with the star (Clooney) and the director (Scorcese). Draft the Acknowledgments section, in which you rave about your wonderful husband who, in addition to putting in long hours at his own job (say, in automotive marketing) also stayed up countless late nights with you, discussing character motivation and plot issues. Write the dedication.
For me, it was this last one that did it: For Ellen. Ellen was a friend of mine who died after a long, brave and gracious battle with cancer. From the second I conceived of the idea for Five Days Left, I knew there would be a dedication page and I knew it would say, simply, For Ellen. Those two words, more than word count, page count, BICHOK, critique partner swaps, NaNoWriMo 50k-in-a-weekend challenges, 1k1hr Twitter challenges, more than any dream of a book deal or a movie deal or a literary prize, made me climb out of bed day after day after day. For two years. Even in winter. Even in Michigan. Mostly at 4am, but often at 3am. For Ellen. I cannot think about, or write, those two words without feeling my eyes sting and my throat close, nor can I think about Ellen without those things happening. And I cannot, and could not, conceive of a world in which I set out to write a book dedicated to her and then didn’t finish it. For Ellen pulled me out of bed, out of the depths of “I can’t finish this” despair and “I’m not good enough” fears.
Recently, I was struggling to finish my second book, which deals with step-parenting, foster care, adoption and the general question of what makes a parent/child relationship–is it biology, law, love, or what? I had piled up all the pushes I could think of–notations in a calendar about what chapter I’d reach by what date, a deadline I made a point of announcing to my agent so there’d be no way I could let myself miss it, and a few others. They were all leaning against me, those pushes, pressing me to write, and I was miserable. And then one night, it hit me: For the five children I’m most connected to: Jack and Libby, Sammie and Maddie, and Evan. Two by DNA. Two by law. One by baptism. All by love.
The pull. I finished the book ten days later. – Julie
